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The Spanish Domestic series Grand Prix del Verano
continued into its third and final year on the FORTA regional channels (and its 14th
season all told), again with Bertín Osborne and Natalia Rodríguez as the main
hosts.
On the subject of audience viewing figures, those relating to
the second phase of Grand Prix del Verano may seem poor compared to its
original run on TVE. This is because FORTA was a community of regional
broadcasters and not all regions aired the show. Consequently, while viewing
figures are in the hundreds of thousands rather than the millions, the
audience share initially remained impressive with figures of 20%+ (this was calculated by determining the
percentage of viewers watching Grand Prix in the areas that could
receive it, rather than it being calculated for the whole of Spain). Sadly,
the 2009 season saw a steady decline in viewers watching and audience share,
going from a high of 484,000 (18% share) for Heat 2 to 241,000 (10.4% share)
for the Final. Grand Prix del Verano had run its course.
Similarly, all was not well in France, where on 13th September
2008, Alain Vautier, the director of programmes for France 3, announced that
Intervilles faced an uncertain future and that the 2009 series was in
jeopardy. Eventually, a workable plan to continue the series was adopted, but
it involved significant cost cutting (a reduction of 30% compared to the
2008 budget) and with filming being limited to a
single venue. The 2009 series would be pre-recorded over quick, twelve-day period
at Amnéville in the Lorraine region of France, which borders Belgium, Germany
and Luxembourg. Additionally, the Wall of Champions game was replaced with
another decisive final game - 'L'Escalade Infernale' (The Infernal Ascent) -
this time contested by all competitors at once as full teams, and half of the
games in every programme were brand new to Intervilles. Finally - in
competition terms, at least - there was not a traditional Final with the
two best teams fighting it out for the outright victory. Instead, the
programme harked back to the early 1960s - the era of the Intervilles Super
Final - where the best team from the current series was pitched against the
winners of the previous year, meaning that there was only one place on offer
in the final for the 16 teams competing.
There was also a revolution going on in the staffing of
Intervilles, with Nathalie Simon being the only presenter to return in
2009, with Nelson Monfort and Philippe Candeloro called in to replace the
departed Julien Lepers, Tex, Alessandro Di Sarno. In terms of refereeing,
there was initially some hope that Robert Wurtz, regular Intervilles arbiter
between 2004 and 2007, was to return having recovered from the cerebrovascular
stroke which had necessitated his departure during the second heat of 2007.
However, despite initially committing to the series, Wurtz had a change of
heart and reversed his decision. The refereeing was therefore overseen by
Olivier Alleman, assisted by Michel Ménétrier.
Oddly, as Grand Prix del Verano came to a close, it was
extending into Portugal as Todos Gostam Do Verão (Everyone Likes Summer).
Recorded at the El Alamo Studios which were the home of Grand Prix, the
Portuguese version was originally planned to run for eight weeks but was so
successful that it was extended to 12 programmes including several specials and ended
with a Portugal-Spain head-to-head. The show was recorded using the Grand
Prix sets and many of the games, the main difference being that the
vachette and bullring did not make an appearance in the Portuguese show.
Todos Gostam Do Verão - launched as "the craziest programme on Portuguese
television" - was a major success, rating highly and garnering an
average audience share in excess of 30%, even if reportedly the high ratings
did eventually tail off somewhat. The challenges featured people dressed as
monkeys, chickens and flies. There was human bowling, there were adults
dressed as babies trying to hit balls into baskets. There were also obstacle
games involving rotating logs over a pool, and others where blindfolded
competitors would attempt to knock down opponents with a giant swinging ball.
There were moving walkways, inflatable balls, Velcro walls. It was vibrant and
it was fun, but it turned out to be a flash in the pan. It was hoped that the series would
continue into 2010, but producers Europroducciones TV eventually decided
against it on purely financial grounds, as it would reputedly have cost four
times as much to stage as
Grand Prix was not going to return in 2010 to
share costs. |
